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Local Food, Local Music, Local Beverages: Maysie’s Farmfest, June 11 & 12

Our good friends at Maysie’s Farm Conservation Center are holding their annual Conservation Concert in conjunction with WXPN and they’ve got a great lineup planned, so why not go green by going local, learning something new, and joining the fun!

GreenTreks Film to be featured at “The Food Revolution” Community Screening and Panel Discussion Event

We’ve been all about making the healthy food, healthy environment connection for years and are delighted to have a segment from one of our GreenWorks programs selected for screening at MiND TV’s upcoming event. The segment from Eat Locally, Think Globally features PA’s own multi-generational Milky Way Farm and the decision to go off chemical based pesticides and fertilizers. It will be online soon, but why not check it out at the screening along with other shorts and follow it up by taking part in a panel discussion with experts on local food and farms.

Here are the details:

The Food Revolution: A Community Screening + Panel Discussion on Local Food

Time: August 18 · 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Location: The First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, 2125 Chestnut Street

Searching for Fresh Seasonal Food Just Got Easier

The Natural Resources Defense Council is always coming up with new tools to keep our green side on the straight and narrow and they’ve recently released a great new EAT LOCAL Feature that helps anyone find what’s fresh and nearby. You can search right from this Widget, or embed it on your Blog, facebook page, or website.

Another really cool feature is Label Lookups, which helps sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to labeling claims. This one’s also available as an iPhone app, so you can make more informed decisions when you’re shopping, rather than being sucked in by false claims and later regretting your buy…

DID YOU KNOW the average food item we eat travels more than a thousand miles before getting to our plate?

When you “buy local” you get fresher and tastier food, support small farms, contribute to the regional economy, help protect open space, and prevent huge amount of resources going into packaging, shipping, and marketing.

Getting Dirty with soil: Celebrating Earth Day 5th Grade style

By bringing together over 200 fifth graders, one teacher, numerous worms and many volunteers, students at the J. Hampton Moore Elementary School in Northeast Philadelphia celebrated Earth Day on its 40th Anniversary, April 22, 2010. Students started the day by moving soil into three wooden garden beds built by volunteers the day before. Employing assembly lines, students filled the beds in the front school yard, preparing them for the following classes. Vegetable, herb and butterfly gardens were planted by the next set of classes. In addition, a pumpkin patch was made using excess soil and rocks.

Volunteers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Weaver’s Way Cooperative Community Programs, Whole Foods and Educational Advancement Alliance, were brought together by EcoExpress for a true community event. The EPA and EcoExpress not only supplied labor, but also funding for supplies.

Weaver’s Way Community Programs assisted with garden design and implementation. Adam and John from Weaver’s Way were excellent instructors with more than one child asking them, “How do I become a botanist?”

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Moore fifth grade science teacher, Meryl Hockstein, besides providing the energetic students, also contributed her own worm composting box. She taught the children why it is important to compost, and had them remove the worms from the compost to fertilize the various beds. Separating worms from compost started as a “yucky” task for some, but ended up as a fun learning event for many.

Whole Foods Market of Jenkintown generously provided snacks for the kids and volunteers, and their donation of a rain water barrel to the project will be put to good use.

The fun event met its objective of bringing together different community groups to help students develop a project that both beautifies and educates. The students will continue to learn about the living ecosystems that exist within soil, plant lifecycles and maintaining healthy gardens. The project decorated the school grounds, while providing a place for students to experience hands-on science, ecology and methods for sustainable living. And they also learned that dirt is what is left on your hands after you work with soil!